CORAZONES BLINDADOS
The Colombian production CORAZONES BLINDADOS (ARMORED HEARTS) premieres this Monday, October 22nd on MundoFox at 8 p.m. ET. Following the lives of police officers that patrol the dangerous streets of Bogotá, CORAZONES BLINDADOS is the second of what MundoFox dubs as “teleseries,” expensively produced, action-based nightly serials with a shorter run than most modern telenovelas, lasting under 90 episodes. Along with EL CAPO, these “teleseries” also seem aimed more directly at male audiences – the promos for CORAZONES BLINDADOS are filled to the brim with explosions, machine guns blaring, and bodies flying.

Andrés Sandoval (TRES MILAGROS; ROSARIO TIJERAS) plays Raúl Ávila, a young man who becomes a police officer after his father is murdered. He falls in love with a fellow officer named Diana Ochoa (Majida Issa), but she is resistant to the new romance because she is unsure of the fate of the father of her child, who was kidnapped by guerillas and has been missing for six years.

The cast also features Óscar Borda, who can currently be seen in EL CAPO and OJO POR OJO. Also with Julían Román, Carlos Manuel Vesga, Natalia Durán, Andrés Toro and Juliana Galvis.

The premiere of CORAZONES BLINDADOS means the Jaime Camil and Ludwika Paleta newsroom comedy LOS EXITOSOS PÉREZ is getting bumped from primetime. Next day reruns of this 2009 telenovela had been running weekdays at 11 a.m. ET, this slot now becomes the show’s primary airing. It looks like the Saturday marathons for LOS EXITSOS PÉREZ will also be replaced by CORAZONES BLINDADOS.

In other MundoFox news, the troubled youths boxing telenovela A MANO LIMPIA (weekdays at 4 p.m. ET) is now English-friendly, with hard English subtitles provided on screen, meaning viewers don’t have to fiddle with their closed captioning for the English translation.

ROSA DIAMANTE On ROSA DIAMANTE (weeknights at 8 p.m. ET on Telemundo), Rosa (Carla Hernández) remains locked behind bars on a plethora of charges involving her stealing the identity of her best friend Eva with all the attendant women-in-prison clichés to be expected – unfriendly cellmate, sexually threatening yard bully, brawls, trips to the infirmary, refusals to rat out the tormentors, indifferent or corrupt guards, and threats of solitary confinement. Is there a Telemundo protagonist that doesn’t wind up prison at some point? In this year alone, Marisa (Litzy) on UNA MAID EN MANHATTAN, Ángela (Adriana Fonseca) on CORAZÓN VALIENTE, and Miranda (Sandra Echeverría) on RELACIONES PELIGROSAS all saw extended stays at the gray bar hotel.

This week saw Rosa disclose her final secrets, revealing to José Ignacio (Mauricio Ochmann) he is the father of her baby, though Eva is the biological mother, and their prior encounter at the boarding school in San Miguel de Allende. The secret regarding Rosa’s parentage still needs to be uncovered, but that is information unknown to Rosa, held by Rosaura (Lupita Ferrer) and Raquel (Claudia Ramírez).

The pleasant supporting couple, Andrea (Sofía Lama) and Junior (Marco de Paula) made love in Friday’s episode, though like too many of the “big” moments on this telenovela, the scenes were underwhelming - far too rushed and treated too insubstantially. The subplot involving Andrea’s stalker, related to a self-defense murder she committed, moved onto center stage as he broke into Junior’s house but, mistaking his brother for him, wound up stabbing José Ignacio in the back with a very big knife as Friday’s episode concluded.

AMOR BRAVÍO Isadora (Leticia Calderón) earned marks on creative villainy this week on AMOR BRAVÍO (weeknights at 10 p.m. ET on Univision) as she tried to kill the heroine, Camila (Silvia Navarro), via bull attack, luring Camila to the pens where a released bull gored her in the leg. Camila is saved by Daniel/Andres (Cristián de la Fuente), but was near death, bleeding out from a wound to her femoral artery, and spent the whole week in critical condition at the hospital.

Once again, the good guys on the telenovela were allowed brains as Camila’s friends, Viviana (Fernanda Castillo) and Rafael (Alex Sirvent), after some investigating around the ranch, quickly sussed out that the attack was no accident and Isadora was behind it. Noticing Dionisio (César Évora) was genuinely shocked by what happened to Camila, the good guys also guessed the alliance between Dionisio and Isadora and her son Alonso (Flavio Medina) might be disintegrating and sought to exploit that and deepen the wedge between them.

Luzma (Mariana Van Rankin) also put one over on her abusive, illiterate uncle Leoncio (José Elías Moreno) when he demanded she read a letter he stole from Andres’s room to him, and the girl pretended it was a Dear John letter from a woman ending a relationship with Andres. (In reality, the letter was the one from Don Daniel explaining his reasons for leaving the ranch to Daniel/Andres and would have outed his identity to his enemies if its contents were actually read.) It was a beautifully moving scene, as Luzma, in making up on the spot what the letter supposedly said, wound up giving voice to her own emotions and reasoning behind ending her relationship with Pablo (Eddy Vilard), in effect, to save his life from Leoncio. What seemed a fairly bland ingénue role early in the novela has very quickly deepened in something much more complicated and interesting, and Mariana Van Rankin is giving an excellent performance.

This week also saw the revelation of another rather random secret connection between the characters as it was revealed the kind hotel owner Amanda (María Sorté) was married to Dionisio and that he is father of her daughter Natalia (Florencia de Saracho). In a flashback, Amanda discovered Dionisio was a crook and con man, finding a suitcase he owned filled with fake passports; they separated, he never sought out his daughter, and Amanda told Natalia her father had died. It is not unusual for a telenovela to have these types of secret connections amongst the characters, but novela’s tend to be overly obvious in their foreshadowing of the connections, while AMOR BRAVÍO isn’t telegraphing the reveals, so they are actually surprising.

UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR The plot kind of stalled this week on UN REFUGIO PARA EL AMOR (weeknights at 7 p.m. ET on Univision) as Luciana (Zuria Vega) and Rodrigo (Gabriel Soto) mourned the disappearance of their baby, missing two months. It strains credibility to me that characters wouldn’t immediately suspect Roselena (Laura Flores) might have something to do with this disappearance, even if they couldn’t prove her involvement, characters should at least be pointing accusatory fingers in her direction. In a fairly bizarre plot turn, the newborn was discovered in the trash by an alcoholic opera loving street person named Don Chelo (Salvador Sánchez) who proceeds to raise the baby as his own.

R.G. Morin writes a weekly column for We Love Soaps, "Telenovela Watch: A weekly look at the world of telenovelas for non-Spanish speakers." For feedback or questions, you can email R.G. Morin at argeemorin@hotmail.com.